Ukraine in the Processes of International Labor Migration

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to study modern migration challenges for Ukraine and the problems of re-immigration of Ukrainians in the post-war period. The processes of globalization and integration of the world economy have their share in the growth of the dynamism of the international labor movement. International labor migration helps to overcome cultural, ethnic and traditional borders, but simultaneously creates risks regarding the development of the economies of recipient countries. In the history of migration processes in Ukraine in the twentieth century and up to the present one may allocate six stages of external labor migration. The current period includes two waves of forced migration: as a result of obtaining a visa-free regime with the EU and the russian invasion of Ukraine (2014 and 2022), as well as a wave of decline in the number of migrant workers due to pandemic restrictions during 2020–2021. The problem of labor migration existed in Ukraine even before the start of a full-scale russian intervention, because of the unregulated and imperfect legislation, low wages, and the lack of a policy of re-immigration of Ukrainian workers. The growth of external labor migration of Ukrainians can lead to an outflow of labor force, which is especially risky in the context of a demographic crisis. A higher level of wages in European countries creates a risk of Ukrainians losing their desire to work in Ukraine. This is true of both the recipients of remittances on our territory and those who have decided to change their country of residence forever, which may become an obstacle to the post-war recovery of the national economy. Therefore, already now, even in the conditions of wartime, the government should begin to implement measures for the re-immigration of Ukrainian labor. The implementation of the experience of other countries in similar situations in full is impractical due to the outdated approaches, other location, behavior of the authorities, reputation of forced migrants, etc. Thus, Ukraine should develop its own re-immigration policy with the involvement of European countries, international organizations and its own migrants.